Rockin’ UND… Grand Forks, North Dakota

Greetings from our Marriott hotel in Grand Forks. We’ve ordered a pizza to be delivered to the lobby and we’re all just hanging out and chatting about the show tonight. As mentioned earlier, this was our furthest-north-gig in our short history. We’re further north than the most northern point in Maine. Interesting. We found the University of North Dakota kids to be AWESOME. We played on a stage they call the “Loading Dock,” with the house sound provided, and a modest lighting rig for Fred to run. They also had a fog machine that smelled like… a fog machine. If you’ve never worked with one of those things, they basically envelope you in a cloud of ‘hot-electrical-wire + dust’ smell. Yummy. Anyway, we had a decent number of kids show up for our first time ever playing there, signed some CD’s and posters, and made some new fans for sure. Our Facebook fan count is already up by a half dozen or so tonight after the show. Yes, we’re only at 255 fans, but dammit we’re proud of each and every new person that we earn. So there.

It was a long day today… so I’ll let the photos (and their captions) tell the rest of the story… catch up with you in the morning from the road back to Nebraska. We’ve got about 9 hours on the road tomorrow, and an early evening show, so we’ll be up early. Hope this pizza comes soon.

Packing up to hit the road from our hotel in Sioux Falls, SD

Leaving the hotel in Sioux Falls, SD
(had to get the Quality Inn sign, as Russ was once employed by them. awesome.)

sometimes on the road, there’s no time (nor need) to pull one’s pants up.

Beers driving the first shift on I-29 northbound to North Dakota

another farmhouse.

it is FLAT up here. crazy flat.

FLAT.

FLAT – with occasional stands of trees.

we arrive at our Marriott in Grand Forks – aka “Jetson’s Home.”

holy Jetsons.

the cool hallway texture.

lobby.

enough pictures of the lobby. let’s go.

elevator paparazzi.

our room for the night.

winky water wankle.

dammit. missed the “miss grand forks” pageant by one day.

fred at dinner. we went to a really nice place (one night each tour, we splurge).

FrAnton comes alive at dinner.

bread. butter.

water. shakers. wood finish.

breakin’ bread at sanders.

Russ’ french onion soup. yumalicious.

din din.

flying frog above our table.

Russ’ prime rib and mashed potatoes (and what are those colorful things? oh. veggies.)

Jay’s classic upper-midwest Walleye dinner.

fred digs the chowdah.

eat.

setting up on stage at the Loading Dock – UND.

fred ponders the setlist.